


Persephone's Sin

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [32]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coping, Difficult Decisions, F/M, Feelings Realization, Forgiveness, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mandalorian Culture, Near Death, Religious Conflict, Self-Sacrifice, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: “What am I supposed to do, now?” he half wondered, half asked. He would rather leave the Covert than keep on living amongst them in shame, frowned upon, pitied by his own brothers and sisters.The Armourer stood.“This is a lesson that cannot be taught, Din. It can only be learned. I'm taking the child for a walk,” she announced. Before leaving the room, she added, “Don't let your pride cloud your judgement. Whatever you do, remember that, before your Creed, you must answer to your conscience.”Her steps faded away. Din was left alone with the silence and the sickening noise of his thoughts. He couldn't bear to look at his helmet. The mud staining it was a cruel reminder of how he felt – dirty and compromised. There was no remedy for this. The only one he could see was one he refused to consider. And that was when it hit him.His heart sank as he glanced at the knife Cara had left by his side, suddenly realising the message it was meant to carry.'I won't fight. Kill me.'[ Cara had to make a tough decision but she's ready to face the consequences. Din wasn't prepared to see his black-and-white world shatter in a thousand shades of grey. ]
Relationships: Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Armorer & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 27
Kudos: 107





	Persephone's Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired (more like triggered 😅) by [chamel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel)'s heartbreakingly beautiful [Good To Be Alive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25940887), more specifically the first chapter.
> 
> Not my usual type of fic, so forget all the fluff and cuteness. This one is pretty far from that.

> _For love, I will handle your sins;  
>  for justice, I will show you mine._
> 
> — [since our story is a crime itself | g.f.](https://empires.tumblr.com/post/155124786945/since-our-story-is-a-crime-itself-gf)

  
  


***

“ _Mando!”_

_He was sinking, sinking in a cold, soundless darkness._

_There was a light above, remote, too far for him to reach. So he stopped trying._

_He felt his mind drift away from his body, all perception of who he was and where he was lost to on oblivion with no return._

_His thoughts, his fears, his regrets... everything dissolved in the water pulling him away from the light._

_The last thing he knew was a force like a storm seizing him right before even his very last vestige of awareness shut down._

“ _Mando, come on!”_

_A burst of light._

_A voice._

“ _Come back to me, buddy.”_

_He was... drifting away._

“ _Don't make me do this, please...”_

_Everything blacked out._

_“D IN!”_

_And then_ —

_Warmth._

_Softness._

_Air._

_Pain._

_An echo._

“ _Forgive me, if you can.”_

  
  


*

  
  


He was burning inside.

His eyes burst open and the sharp inhale the shock caused him burned its was deep into his chest, causing him to choke on his own breath.

There was white all around him, light pouring in through a veil of green from his right. There were sounds outside, and inside there was silence. He was lying on his back, libs heavy as lead.

He blinked. Gradually, his sight gained some focus. He still couldn't recognise his surroundings, except—

His heartbeat sped up.

Cara's knife lay on the small table beside him and—

His heartbeat seemed to stop.

Behind Cara's knife, crusted in dry mud, stood his helmet.

He was exposed.

Who... who had done this?

“Welcome back to the living.”

Din rolled his head to his left. He could make out a silhouette through the wall of white – a sheet hanging from the ceiling he realised. The voice that had spoken... it painted a picture in his mind – a golden helmet, a proud stance.

_The Armourer._

“What happened?” he rasped. Breathing felt like inhaling burning embers.

“You drowned.” Din heard the scratch of a chair being pulled. Through the veil the Armourer's contour moved to sit down. “You were dead for three minutes.”

_Dead._

How could that be?

He remembered something— _someone_ calling him back from the darkness.

“Who—”

He heard a faint scoff.

“I think you know who.”

A sudden tightness dug sharp claws deep into Din's chest. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to keep the rapid increase in his pulse under control.

“Cara,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “What did you do.”

“It couldn't be helped,” said the Armourer in a calm drawl that made Din even angrier. Would she still speak like this had this disgrace fallen upon her?

“She could have let me die.”

“She could have.” The Armourer's unwavering calm was unnerving. The panic building up within Din had the gelid quality of death itself, a doom that couldn't be escape. He tried to find shelter behind denial, telling himself this couldn't be true, that there had do be an explanation, that Cara would have never done this to him, because she knew— _she knew_ this was worse than death to a Mandalorian...

He stumbled into a sound in the middle of his inner mayhem – crying, someone was crying; he fumbled to catch the thread of this sound and when he finally grasped it, he followed it out his the tangle of noises clouding his reason, out into the light.

_The kid._

The kid was fussing.

The Armourer got up and the black ink of her shadow disappeared from the canvas of the sheet hanging between her and Din. He could hear a low, soft murmur somewhere in the room. The crying ceased.

So the child was here, safe.

An absence hung in the room, and Din didn't know how an absence could be so shrill and deafening.

When the Armourer's steps approached again, he couldn't stop himself from asking something it was probably best he didn't know. But he needed to know.

“Where is she?”

The words scratched their way up his throat, choking him to come out through the knot that was making him struggle to breathe. His head was spinning from the blizzard of thoughts crowding it, each of them screaming louder than the next.

There was a long pause. Din could almost hear the Armour carefully evaluating whether she should tell him or not.

“Outside,” she said at last. “It took Alhena two days to convince her to leave your side and get some fresh air.”

 _Alhena._ He knew this name – knew _her._ Black and purple armour, two Togruta foundlings... It was good to hear she and the children had survived the slaughter of Nevarro.

“Alhena is here?”

“Thi'aan, too. This is their home.”

So there were more people of their Tribe, here to witness his downfall. He didn't know why they had bothered to hide him behind this makeshift screen if he was already ruined. They might as well look him in the eye instead of pitying him behind his back. If they even considered them a _vod_ of theirs at all.

“Where? Where are we?”

“Kashyyyk, Mytaranor sector.”

He remembered, now. They had been searching for the surviving members of the Covert across the galaxy – he and Cara with the kid, and the Armourer. Their lead had been reliable, apparently. He remembered something else: the Shyyyo bird attacking them in the forest, the fight, the fall into the river... then nothing.

“You were gone,” the Armourer said as if reading his mind. “Your partner saved you.”

Saved him. That was debatable. Cara might have brought him back from the dead but she had done him no favour, and she knew it.

“She saw me,” Din argued spitefully.

“Yes.”

He couldn't accept that Cara had deliberately decided to betray the mutual respect she and Din shared, not after he had already begged her not to do it once.

“Who else?”

Still infuriatingly composed, the Armourer replied, “Nobody else. Alhena is off-planet with Thi'aan and the boys, to find more oxygen for you.”

 _Oxygen._ Only now Din realised he had the prongs of a cannula in his nostrils. The light tubes ran along his cheekbones, curling behind his ears. He imagined Cara's trembling hands placing them, a picture so vivid it could have been a memory – a hesitant touch, a caress, incoherent whispers...

“I never asked for any of this.”

“No.” The Armourer sighed. Her tone carried sympathy. “But it cannot be undone.”

Din tired to sit up. “I must speak to Cara.”

“It would not be a good idea,” the Armourer warned. “She needs some time.”

Dizzy, Din ripped the cannula off his face and turned his head toward the woman's shadow.

“ _She_ needs time?”

The Armourer, impervious to his spite, sat on her chair again and crossed her legs. Din heard the pop of a bottle being opened, liquid being poured into a glass. The sound of it evoked the feeling of water between his fingers, cold and elusive. He suddenly remembered... all of it. Drowning. Fighting. Giving up.

“After we stabilised you,” said the Armourer, “She asked me if granting you a chance to kill her with your own hands would restore your honour.”

Din's gaze was transfixed on the palms of his hands. He clenched them into tight fists.

“She _what?”_

“I told her you'd be wiser than to blame her for wanting to save your life. I was wrong.”

“The Creed—”

“The Creed,” the Armourer cut in, “states you can settle this by taking her life as a compensation for the liberty she took. Go, then,” she dared him. “Kill her.”

Din's nails were digging into the balls of his hands hard enough to cut into the skin. The pain grounded him, took over the sorrow for a moment and, in a shred of fleeting lucidity, he heard himself spit, “I don't want to kill her.”

The Armourer hummed, “Then you see how she must have felt. You despise her, now? She knew this was coming. She would rather die or live without you than let you die. If you believe this was the easiest option, for her, you must have never loved.”

Din's eyes snapped open. He glanced down at the blood lining his nails and cursed under his breath. This... this had nothing to do with love.

“ _Mando!”_

He took his head between his hands, gasping at the violence of the memories bursting in his head.

“ _Mando, come on!”_

What Cara ha done—

“ _Come back to me, buddy.”_

—it had nothing—

“ _Don't make me do this, please...”_

—nothing to do with—

_“D IN!”_

—with—

“ _Forgive me, if you can.”_

—with...

Din growled as the pain flared in his head until his sight whited out. He felt sick.

He could feel Cara's knife staring at him from the table, the sharp tip of its blade catching the sunlight spilling in from the window to reflect it in blinding sparkles. She couldn't have forgotten it, but he couldn't see why she would choose to _leave_ it.

“I don't _—_ I don't know what I believe any more,” he stammered. He inhaled deeply in a lame attempt to chase the nausea away. “My honour is lost.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Armourer place a hand against the sheet separating them. He expected her to have words of comfort for him; she didn't.

“ _Verd ori'shya beskar'gam._ If your honour can be taken with your helmet, you do not deserve to call yourself a Mandalorian.”

“What you just said goes against everything I've ever been taught.”

The Armourer's fingers glided down the sheet as her hand fell back to her side.

“We are told no one is allowed to look us in the face and live to tell the tale,” she said. “Do you think this should apply to every single instance?”

“What I think doesn't matter,” Din retorted. His opinion wouldn't change the state of things, nor save his reputation.

The long sigh the Armourer let out was a sound that wasn't new do Din: he had heard it before, several times – from his parents and his elders, from all the people who had helped him to grow into a better man.

“You are still a frightened little boy who will do anything to fit in,” the Armourer noted, a drop of melancholy tingeing her tone blue. “The Way has many ways, Din,” she continued, the shade of blue in her voice growing darker. “A virtuous warrior is valuable. A warrior who cannot think with their own mind is a mere pawn, and a dangerous one.”

Din didn't want to listen. This was heresy. But the Armourer wasn't done.

“You have already proved you have a moral compass of your own. You went against everything you believed to save your foundling, once. Is that so different from what Cara did for you?”

Din opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out of it. Betraying the Guild wasn't the same as betraying his own Creed; besides, it had been _his_ choice, not somebody else's.

And because it was easier to attach rather than to defend himself, he snarled, “Would you still speak like that if you were in my place?”

He wasn't expecting to get a patronising half a laugh in return.

“Why do you assume I haven't?”

Din felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise. The sweat on his bare torso felt cold all of a sudden.

“You _have?”_

“That is a conversation for another time and place.”

Somehow it didn't seem possible. The Armourer was one of the wisest in the Tribe, a point of reference for the young ones and, often, even for those more experienced than her. To think she could bring such a dishonour upon herself and still walk proudly among their people...

“What am I supposed to do, now?” he half wondered, half asked. He would rather leave the Covert than keep on living amongst them in shame, frowned upon, pitied by his own brothers and sisters.

The Armourer stood.

“This is a lesson that cannot be taught, Din. It can only be learned. I'm taking the child for a walk,” she announced. Before leaving the room, she added, “Don't let your pride cloud your judgement. Whatever you do, remember that, before your Creed, you must answer to your conscience.”

Her steps faded away. Din was left alone with the silence and the sickening noise of his thoughts. He couldn't bear to look at his helmet. The mud staining it was a cruel reminder of how he felt – dirty and compromised. There was no remedy for this. The only one he could see was one he refused to consider. And that was when it hit him.

His heart sank as he glanced at the knife Cara had left by his side, suddenly realising the message it was meant to carry.

_'I won't fight. Kill me.'_

  
  


*

  
  


The hut was built on top of a tree that stood over fifty feet above the ground; beneath, trails of patchy grass ran around a maze of brooks and ponds glittering in the pale sunlight. This was a good place for Alhena and Thi'aan to raise their children. It was a good place for _anyone_ to raise their children, he thought glumly.

His step wasn't very firm. He had to lean against the walls as he made his way out of the room, barefoot, and out to the balcony surrounding the hut. He was still feelings dizzy and disoriented, but walking was helping. By the time he found Cara, his knees had found a confident stability, which was lost the very moment she turned around.

She had been crying. She wasn't now, but her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks flushes like they had been wiped over and over, harshly. The stoic way her mouth tightened when she saw him couldn't stop the glossy sheen that filled her eyes. She scrutinised him stiffly, the shock to see him out in the sun without his helmet painted so clearly all over her features that Din was almost tempted to snarl, _'What did you expect?'_

But there was enough sorrow in Cara's expression already, and Din, as furious as he was, couldn't look at that broken face without feeling a pang of _something_ in his guts.

Cara pulled herself up from the wooden railing she was leaning on and just stood there, waiting. Din didn't recognise the clothes she was wearing – dark leggings and a blue tunic too tight for her; her hair was damp, curling in soft waves, her braid gone.

Her voice was achingly croaky when, with a resigned nod, she whispered, “Have you come to tell me you hate me?”

 _Yes,_ was his instinctual response, but when it reached his lips he couldn't thrust it past them.

He was more surprised than she was when he heard himself say, “No.”

Cara nodded, a slow, helpless motion that felt like surrender. Din's hand clenched around the knife in his hand – Cara's knife. Whatever the fire raging inside him was, it was definitely not hatred. _I should hate you,_ he told himself. _I should and I don't. I_ can't. _Why can't it hate you?_

“Have you come to kill me, then?” asked Cara with disturbing nonchalance. Din couldn't tell if the quiver he had detected betrayed fear or _hope._

He moved a step in her direction. “Is that what you want?”

Cara held his gaze. There was a dignified set to her shoulders, in how she let him approach and break into her personal space. Every inch of her body was tense and ready to take anything he would bring onto her.

“I want you to be able to walk with your head up high,” she said, shooting him a challenging look. “If my life is the price to pay for that, you can take it.”

So she thought it was that simple: her life for his honour. Somehow the idea that she had acted they way she had assuming she could easily fix everything by offering him her own life blinded din with rage.

He didn't realise what he was doing until Cara cried in pain as her back hit the wall of the hut. Din wall all over her, panting rabidly, his forehead pressed upon hers and the blade against her throat.

“You knew it would ruin me,” he growled, unable to keep a desperate edge from his tone. “Why did you do it, Cara?”

As implicitly promised, Cara wasn't fighting back. In spite of the situation, she was observing his face fondly.

“You're a smart guy,” she murmured. There was sadness in her gaze and in the half smile curving her lips. “I'm sure you can figure it out.”

Din's hand pushed harder against her neck. “You had no right—”

“I left you to die once,” she interrupted him. “This was my turn to be selfish.”

_Selfish._

Din rolled the term in his confused mind, trying to understand how _he_ had been selfish. Then he remembered the look in Cara's eyes while she begged him to stay with her, his hands and hers holding on to each other, and the fire, the fear for her and the child... All he had wanted in that moment was to make sure they would be safe and, _selfishly,_ he hadn't considered they might feel the same about him.

He squeezed his eyes, chasing the recollection away.

“It was unforgivable,” he hissed, but the anger was ebbing, replaced by a guilt he didn't know what to do with.

And then Cara muttered, “I know. I'm not asking for forgiveness,” and she closed her hand around his wrist, pushing the blade deeper into her skin, and the guilt within Din filled his heart with shame.

“Come on,” Cara hissed, numb and cold as ice, “let's get this over with.”

It was the right thing to do, killing her. She had brought this upon herself willingly and he had a right to claim her life as payment for her sin.

“Do it, Mando,” urged Cara. She wasn't challenging him any more: she was imploring him.

“You deserve it.”

“I won't resist.”

Din's receding rage rattled in his chest, threatening to burst. His hand was trembling, and the knife with it. The fog in his head was suffocating his rationality, blurring the borders between instinct and reason. He couldn't separate what he wanted and what he was compelled to do. His forearm crushing Cara's chest, the threat of the blade he was holding against her throat... that didn't feel right, didn't feel like something he would do...

“It's okay,” Cara soothed with a brittle smile on her lips. The glossy sheen in her eyes was getting watery. “I understand why you have to do this.”

“You have no idea—”

“I know killing me will give you back what I took from you. I would have done this myself but it would have killed the purpose – forgive the irony.”

A part of Din wanted to laugh. This was Cara Dune: threatened with a knife to her throat and still she had the spirit to _joke._

“It's okay, Din. I'll take this for you,” she said, her thumb stroking the inside of Din's wrist reassuringly.

Din couldn't reconcile her calm with what was happening. Cara was a fighter, not a quitter, and it was unthinkable that she would just let someone have their way with her, even if that someone was din himself.

“ _Why?”_ he grunted, frustrated by his inability to _understand._

The question seemed to offend Cara more than the knife he was holding against her. Her beautiful face contracted into a frown that was both hurt and resentful, fingers tightening so hard around Din's wrist he nearly expected it to break.

“Stop asking stupid questions, you irredeemable asshole,” she hissed. “If you don't get why I did it, there is no point in explaining. Hate me, for all I care. You can't make me regret this.”

“Cara-”

“Just kill me,” she breathed. Tears had started welling in her eyes – angry, sad, desperate. Din could feel the bob of her throat as she swallowed against the blade, chin trembling, and thought how wrong, how terrible it was. “Please, just—just do it.”

All of a sudden, everything felt crushingly real – Cara's tears, his rage, his violence... Who was this? Who was this monster baring his teeth at one of the very few people who ever truly cared about him? His hand trembled, fingers melting around the handle until the knife started slipping away.

He wasn't like this, he wasn't this person.

He would never hurt Cara, no matter what.

“I can't.”

The knife fell at their feet, hitting the wooden floor with a heavy thud that made Din's stomach twist in shame for what he had been about to do.

Shaking, he took a step back, eyes darting frantically over Cara's neck, as if trying to make sense of what he was seeing, because it wasn't— _couldn't_ be real. There was a thin scarlet line across Cara's pulse. It was just a couple of inches but it was crude and stark against her pale skin and Din just couldn't bear to look at it knowing what he had almost done to her.

Panting, she sank back against the wall, knees shaking, and shot Din a look drenched in grief and misery.

“I won't apologise for what I did.”

The proud set of her chin, the unwavering confidence in her voice despite the tears running down her cheeks... she was a warrior on her knees, defeated, but she wasn't begging for mercy. His Cara never would.

“I don't expect you to.”

Cara's lips twisted bitterly. Twin tears fell from her eyes down her face, caught in the corners of her mouth and then slipped down her jaw. One of them rolled across the cut in her neck, mixed with a drop of blood; it drew a reddish path as it reached the hem of Cara's tunic and there died in a pink stain. Cara's head hung forward, her hair a dark curtain at the sides of her face. The heaviness of her breath made the rapid rise and fall of her chest look like it hurt. It probably did. The cut on her throat must be painful, too, but she didn't even seem aware of it. In the unbearable silence that had fallen into the room, her whisper sounded like a scream to Din's ears.

“So where does that leave us, now? I stabbed you in the back. You won't kill me.” He heard her sniff, only a light jerk in her shoulders showing him he hadn't just imagined it. “This cannot be mended.”

It couldn't.

There was no remedy for what she had done that did not involve either of the dying. Din was disgusted by himself for _considering_ killing her. He felt sick. He was wondering if it was right and honourable of him to cling so stubbornly to a Creed that demanded that he took the life of someone who had saved his, just because his face had been revealed. This was faith: belief beyond question, beyond reason, even... this was what he was expected to be, now: blind and devout. He didn't feel like either.

He hung his head, too. His chest felt like it was shrinking, crushing his heart into a deadly grip that was slowly taking his breath away.

“Do I look different to you?”

The question, spoken softly through hesitant lips, caught Cara off guard. She raised her head, blinked at Din, and replied in an unsteady voice, “What?”

“Do I look different,” he repeated, “without my—”

He couldn't bring himself to say it. It hurt. It hurt and it was humiliating, though not in the way he had always imagined it would feel. The times he had tried to picture this moment, the lack of his helmet was a burden, a curse; now it felt like he had been deprived of a comfort – a stupid, trivial comfort – left bare and exposed for the world to see him as he was beneath his beskar, not a warrior but a man – human, fallible, vulnerable. He could see what the Armourer had meant, now: if he felt worthless without his helmet, was there really anything worthy beneath it?

He heard Cara gulp and, again, shivered at the thought of the cut burning across her throat.

“You look like the man I couldn't have borne to bury,” she said, words faint, barely audible, barely words at all, “but it's like you drowned despite my efforts.”

The way her voice cracked on _drowned_ made him wince like he'd been stabbed.

“You knew how I would feel,” he argued, but it was like he was talking to himself, not to her.

“Yeah,” she admitted, “and I hate myself for what I've done to you, but don't think for one second I wouldn't do it again.”

She felt guilty for what she had done. She was _suffering_ for what she had done. This couldn't be right. How could he let her torture herself for saving him? This couldn't—it _wasn't_ right.

“You'd die for me.”

Why was he asking this? He knew, she had already made it clear. He just couldn't accept it.

“Yes.” Cara spoke feebly, tentatively, like an apology. Din could almost hear the unspoken truth encased into that simple sound, and it was more disconcerting, more powerful than his anger.

_'I love you. I'm sorry.'_

She wouldn't apologise for saving his life but she would apologise for being ready to sacrifice her own life for the sake of his stupid honour.

There mere idea of Cara dying for him made him want to scream for a pain that was only a mirage in his mind and yet strong— _real_ enough to make him gasp for air. What a fool. How could he expect her to just stand there and let him go when he couldn't even bear the thought of losing her?

He licked his lips, heart pounding in his chest. The ground beneath his feet felt brittle like thin ice. He didn't know what he was doing, where he was going on these wobbly steps, but it felt right, and if everything had to shatter around him in order to move on, then be it. _Be it._ The gods may sneer at him and strip him of his glory, he wasn't going to watch Cara fall apart for loving him enough to give everything for him.

“Then I guess,” he said in a resolute tone that didn't sound like him at all, “I guess I can accept to live, for you.”

To his shock, Cara _laughed._ An empty, mirthless laugh that couldn't conceal another broken sniffle.

“I'm not sure that's fair.”

 _Nothing here is fair,_ Din thought. _Fair_ was a luxury people like them couldn't afford. And if it had to be unfair, at least it would be unfair at their own conditions.

He walked up to her, curled a hand around her neck; the careful motion of his thumb swiping across the line of minuscule blood beads oozing from the cut he left, and his touch painted a scarlet arch across her throat. He couldn't erase this—all the apologies in the would couldn't erase this crime. He just hoped he wasn't beyond forgiveness.

“ _This_ is not fair,” he sighed, guilt heavy and rough, tight like a noose around his neck. “I nearly—“ He couldn't even say it. There was no honour in a man who put himself before the ones he loved, and he had almost become such a man. After all Cara had done for him and the kid, after all the risks she had taken asking for nothing in return... How could he be so arrogant to think he should _punish_ a gesture of love?

“I'm sorry, Cara.”

A chocked little laugh got caught between Cara's lips as she abandoned her forehead against Din's, falling limp into his arms. He held her tight, perhaps even too tight, but she didn't complain.

“Forget about sorry,” she murmured, so close to his mouth he could taste the salt of her tears. “How do we fix this shit?”

Din didn't have an answer for that. Everything was complicated and messy, but one thing he knew: he was going to overcome this predicament with dignity, and Cara shouldn't feel responsible for caring about him more than she cared about herself. He'd been such a fool...

“I don't know,” he breathed upon her lips. “We'll find a way, I promise.”

Cara cupped his face into a hand, looking at him hesitantly, as if she couldn't believe her own ears. “Yeah?”

And suddenly Din was grinning. “This would have been much harder to fix if I'd been dead.”

The meek giggle Cara exhaled sounded too much like a sob, but her tone was soft when she nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess.”

“I need some time, Cara,” Din sighed, clasping his hand upon hers over his cheek. “This is not something I can just brush off, but I... I can come to terms with it.”

“You sure?”

“I know—I _get_ why you did it.” He did. He did. He _did._ “And I get why you're ready to die for this.”

“If this is a white lie—” Cara tried to shake her head but din stopped her.

“No, no.” He took her face between his hands, wiped a few tears with his fingertips and squeezed gently, trying to ground her. “Cara—my Creed says I cannot forgive you. My conscience says it's not fair to ask someone who loves you to watch you die.” He let their foreheads touch again, closed his eyes. “Whether I like it or not, if I'd been in your place I couldn't have let you go.”

There was more, more lingering on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't bring himself to say that, not after how he had treated her. Every fibre of his being, however, was screaming it out and sooner or later it would have to be addressed. Not just yet. Not so hurriedly.

 _I love you too,_ he wanted to say. _Forgive me. I love you. I_ _LOVE YOU._

He felt Cara smile and wondered for a moment if he had accidentally voiced that thought or she was just reading his mind, as she always seemed to do.

“Two steps back and one step forward...” she commented with a timid grin, “... could've been worse.”

Din couldn't resist pulling her into his arms. It was more for himself than for her – maybe for both, he didn't know. Cara held on tight to him, seemingly as needy as he was; she was crying again but this was a kind of tears Din didn't feel he needed to dry.

“I can't go through this alone,” he muttered in hair. If he was going to question everything he had ever been and believed in, he would need her beside him. For her—for _them_ and the family they had built, he could do this.

Cara tangled her fingers in his hair. He felt her lips brush over his ear as she whispered, “If you still want me, I'm here.”

Din buried his face into her neck, inhaling deeply. - her scent and the air around them, the overwhelming feeling of being _alive._ “Good,” he smiled. “That's all I needed to hear.”

He lost track of time, and didn't care. The comforting warmth of Cara's embrace, her softness, the tender pressure of her hands on his back... he almost never had this, whatever _this_ was. _This_ made him feel cherished. _This_ made him feel important. Even without his helmet.

After what felt like forever, Cara murmured, “Din, I—”

She tried to pull back but he wrapped his arms more firmly around her, didn't let her go, didn't let her finish.

“It's okay,” he said, the heavy weight on his shoulders feeling inexplicably lighter all of a sudden. “We're going to be okay.”

He believed it.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> **Verd ori'shya beskar'gam: a warrior is more than his armour.
> 
> If you're wondering why I've been so productive laterly, it's because I finally got a few days off work after working nonstop since January. I'm trying to make the most of it as long as it lasts.
> 
> I'm aware a oneshot isn't remotely enough to cover somethig as huge as the trauma of Din having his helmet removed without his consent and I'm sure this cannot possibly do justice to the whole issue but I couldn't not write it and I take full responsibility for any OOC-ness you might have felt. I did some research and found out one very interesting post-drowning effect can be aggressiveness and I just couldn't not exploit it for the sake of a little more drama. Hope it didn't feel too off.
> 
> So, shortly: have mercy. This is waaay out of my comfort zone and I honestly couldn't wait to finish this and move on. I feel awful for doing this to these two beautiful disasters.
> 
> Thanks for reading, thanks for making my days with your comments! You guys are the best. ❤


End file.
